"Privately, a lot of people think that the situation is not good for SUSY. This is a big political issue in our field. For some great physicists, it is the difference between getting a Nobel prize and admitting they spent their lives on the wrong track."

This week's Nature issue also has an editorial titled Dark Rumblings, comparing the LHC SUSY search to Michelson & Morley's search for the ether, arguing that "the negative results now coming out of the LHC should be just as stimulating as any positive findings." So if you've wasted 30 years of your life, don't forget negative results should be stimulating.

73 comments:

“Many physicists are uncomfortable with any theory that requires such delicate fine-tuning to work. SUSY offers an alternative to this 'fine-tuning' problem. The theory postulates that each regular particle has a heavier supersymmetrical partner, many of which are unstable and rarely interact with normal matter. The quantum fluctuations of the supersymmetrical particles perfectly cancel out those of the regular particles, returning the Higgs boson to an acceptable mass range.”

-“Beautiful theory collides with smashing particle data”- Nature

I’ve often wondered what has them uncomfortable; is it they imagine this would force them to believe in a god or simply that reality having no other way to be real is unreasonable? That being I find the former as an unnecessary concern if the latter happens to be necessarily true. That's since choice seems to require decision, while having none precludes requiring one.

We discussed that in my post Is Physics Cognitevely Biased? It makes them feel uncomfortable because it seems to demand an explanation, so another level of "Why?" Yet that discomfort is arguably one arising from a brain formed by natural selection. So one might wonder how much human intuition is relevant. It remains to say though that humans do, at least so far, have a tendency to describe Nature's ways as elegant and beautiful. So if it seems there's a break with that, it's reasonable to wonder if one has missed something. Best,

SUSY isn't dead yet, it's on the ropes. I'm 50/50 on the theory myself, both in thoughts and feelings. We'll see.

What isn't dead though, apparently, is the controversy. Whole careers will go up in smoke if these particles aren't found. Here's to John Ellis, to his courage, for being willing to admit he may be wrong about a theory he's worked on for 30 years, if so. Will Gordon Kane respond as well in the same way? Kepler and Fred Hoyle were also wrong at times, and had the courage to admit it when proven wrong. Real scientists. Science trumps politics in the end. It's the intervening time that's annoying. :-)

But whatever, SuperStrings theorists will dodge and weave and find a way to explain they were simply wrong on the SUSY masses, that they must be higher and they will adjust if so. Some things never change.:-0

Thanks so much for that Loops blog, Bee, that's just what the doctor ordered.

Yes of course truth as it relates to beauty. Then again beauty having objective and subjective components has this to be a slippery concept. Still though I seldom question my own sense of aesthetics when I fail to find the beauty in having many more particles required to explain the ones we have thus far observed or a ring piercing a person’s lip. Then again perhaps I'm just revealing my age:-)

"Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity, --I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only a euphemism for folly?"

-Plato, “The Republic”

"The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience"

Here's another "This and That" ... t'ain't no shortage of them in this world ... John Baez and Mike Stay have written a beautiful paper re the interdisciplinary approach between Mathematics (the notational jungle), Physics (first and still mightiest of Sciences), Logic (Philosophy), and Computer Science (Logic), which you can find in a wonderful new article at Azimuth: here.

Bee, I think human intuition is very relevant to science. It's just that most people overestimate their intuition. How else could you explain creationists and other bizarre creatures. There is no reason to exclude the general run of physicists from this parameter space. They are highly trained, logical, and intelligent people, but intuitive? I don't think so.

The fact is that when you move from civilized territory to the frontier where the unknown lives trained physicists really don't have an advantage over creationists. If physicists had real intuition they would have figured out by now that someone and something in the history of physics is a goof. And they would have gone after that goof instead of inventing a panoply of new particles and incredibly complex math to paper it over.

If you geometrically follow the link between the Trivium and Quadrivium within each of us, each are lead to a cognitively based (apex)"point for exploration and recipient?"

That is not God or outside of time, but a real connection to the "mother of invention( the uterine from which all children are born from)," that, is available to all persons who practiced the early historical teachings, as a current modern day methodology?:)

I’m not sure what I think about this ‘green mathematics’ idea. But I think I’m getting a vague feel for it. This may sound corny, but I feel it should be about structures that are more like this:Network Theory (Part 1)

You know Steven I like what John is doing, and this is what a lot of scientists and mathematicians "are doing" is coming back to earth. Get rid of the crackpot index....it was really a stain on what any good mind hoped to achieve from the heart.

Kauffman move over:) Lee move over( while economic in origin) one recognizes the duality of their professions to be able to see the world in different ways based on their trade.:)

Why take a scientist to wall street, when they can give their expertise to sociological understanding as well, by opening up them self to investigation( a personal journey) along with the events in the world. None of us "is perfectly :)asymmetrical" yet one day we will return too?

I would agree not finding either the super partners or the higgs will usher in an exciting time for physics, as it will force the recognition that there is some old idea(s) that needs discarding or the acceptance of one(s) that’s never been given credence or perhaps not even thought of as seeming too incredible. I think it would spell the true end of the “shut up and calculate” era and the beginning of a new one, which Hardy and Spekkens would call the age of “shut up and contemplate” .

That is I’ve always thought Einstein was right years ago when he reminded that the physicists knows best “where the shoe pinches”, yet as it seems they only pay attention when they can no longer stand the discomfort. Anyway it is in a way comforting to know, that when it comes to such human fragilities, even the best and the brightest among us are not all that much different than the rest of us:-)

“It has been often said, and certainly not without justification, that the man of science is a poor philosopher. Why, then, should it not be the right thing for the physicist to let the philosopher to the philosophizing? Such might indeed be the right thing at a time when the physicist believes he has at his disposal a rigid system of fundamental concepts and fundamental laws which are also well established that waves of doubt cannot reach them; but, it cannot be right at a time when the very foundations of physics itself become problematic as they are now. At a time like the present, when experience forces us to seek a newer and more solid foundation, the physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation of the theoretical foundations; for, he himself knows best, and feels more surely where the shoe pinches. In looking for a new foundation he must make clear in his own mind just how far such concepts which he uses are justified, and are necessities.”

-Albert Einstein,“Physics and Reality” The journal of the Franklin Institute [Volume.221, No. 3, March 3, 1936]

Best,

Phil

P.S. I just I noticed I totally mucked it up by placing it in the wrong thread. Perhaps then the censor was doing me a favour:-)

SUSY is just one of many examples. So far no gravitational waves have been found. Existence of Higgs boson is highly uncertain, too. No extradimensions were found. String theory/LQG both all wrong (do you remember the lone photon in GRB 090510)... And so on (did I missed something?) - it's evident, the whole physics of the last thirty years is on the dead track. Its experts were best payed scientists in the human history - and they were all wrong.

The funny part is, most of phenomena predicted with these theories still exists and they're living well - just at another places, when their founders are expecting. We know about many forces, violating inverse square law - yet theorists are struggling with finding of extradimensions. Gravitational waves are known for years - as a cosmic background noise. Higgs fields manifests with Yukawa coupling, which is known for decades. The well known dilepton channel of top quarks decay is just the example of Higgs field symmetry, which the physicists are looking for during Higgs boson searches.

Well if I’m but only able to provide comic relief I will have accomplished something. By the way, I just noticed an error in my last post, as I wrote Plank when it should have been Planck. Then again perhaps it was a Freudian slip as it relates to the nature of wood and cognition:-)

”And I for such like petty crimes as these,But to the purpose--for we cite our faults,That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;And partly, seeing you are beautifiedWith goodly shape and by your own reportA linguist and a man of such perfectionAs we do in our quality much want—“

-William Shakespeare, “Two Gentlemen of Verona”(Act IV, Scene I)

Actually it is Shakespeare with which many of us must share the stage and yet I have always more enjoyed his comedies more so than his tragedies:-)

”All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players:They have their exits and their entrances;And one man in his time plays many part“

Just on the plank thing....Star Trek came to mind when I heard it reiterated...Beam me a board Scotty:)

Examples gross as earth exhort meW. Shakespeare, Hamlet : IV, iv.

To receive a noble prize for what had already been established. Now overlay's present day experience? How many times has it been echoed from "origins foreknown to awareness faced" many different times, through different generations?:)

Genus development in the valley is still a interesting perspective overall. I think we all knew that already though, right!:)

Oh lord, what have I done? lol ... keep the Shakespeare stuff coming, folks. Dale Carnegie once famously said, if it's a quote and it didn't come from the Bible, it probably came from Shakespeare. :-)

In other news ..

Zephir quoted me out of context as ..../* SUSY isn't dead yet, it's on the ropes...*/From this graph is evident, SUSY has been well dead before twenty years already.

Wow. "this graph" shows a range where SUSY could exist. Don't you analyze the very graphs you send?!

Just curious, Zephir, if I were to post you snail mail, where should I address it? Would it be:

Zephir (sic) aka Zephyr, The God of the West WindMt. OlympusThessaly, Greece

Or the local zoo, King Babar's cage? For research purposes:

Zephir may refer to:

* a fictional character associated with Babar the Elephant * rail-road shunting vehicles manufacturer, see Rail car mover * the lidar anemometer ZephIR developed by QinetiQ and licensed to Natural Power

See also

* Zephyr (disambiguation)

Zephyr may refer to:

* A light or west wind. * Zephyrus, one of the Anemoi and the Greek god of the west wind * Zephyranthes, a plant genus whose species include the zephyr lily * Zephyr (graffiti artist), a well-known graffiti artist from New York City * Zephyr (protocol), an instant messenger protocol and application-suite * Zephyr (Wooldridge), a stainless steel sculpture by Steve Wooldridge on the IUPUI campus * Zephyr (candy), a soft marshmallow based candy, very popular in Post Soviet countries. Produced mainly in Latvia.

In that post there is this reductive acknowledgment that came to my mind that will make Steven cringe... but as to any basis....."Chop Wood Carry water" came to mind....as to a contemplative phase of science as too "shut up and contemplate."

Isn't that the way though, that after all the calculations it's as if at that point, some self evidential process unfolds as that cognitive realization....as if, you had already known all along?

Yes and strangely enough one of the mathematicians of the past, Georg Cantor, which I so much respect was a staunch believer that Bacon and Shakespeare be one in the same. However I find it somewhat difficult to understand how a lawyer and a playwright/actor could possibly be of the same character:-)

All:“God save your majesty!

Cade:"I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;all shall eat and drink on my score; and I willapparel them all in one livery, that they may agreelike brothers and worship me their lord."

Supersymmetry etc: there's no logical a priori on what the/or universe (I've started calling it "Thisiverse", a proper name like Saturn, in case there are more) should be like - so all people can do is try models and see how they work. The oft expressed notion that someday appropriate equations will "fall out" of something is rubbish in principle, the mathematical and logical tools do not and cannot contain ways to pick out extra magical material existence from model worlds. (Hence, interest in MUH etc.) I know, I harp on this but just "couldn't help it."

Here's a quote from Richard Feynman out of The Character of Physical Law, that I used to head my recent FQXi Essay:What is necessary “for the very existence of science,” and what the characteristics of nature are, are not to be determined by pompous preconditions; they are determined always by the material with which we work, by nature herself. ... In fact it is necessary for the very existence of science that minds exist which do not allow that nature must satisfy some preconceived conditions, like that of our philosopher.

(Heh, I am wonderfully beset with meaningful Captchas: this time, "caltedst" - starts out with letters of Cal Tech, where Feynman taught physics.)

Germanium from GERDA - I remember reading, either this or some other case, the people using the metal would borrow it to save money and not be stuck with left over junk. How often to experimenters borrow, recycle, and otherwise use things efficiently? I'd like to think it's a lot, but is it? Could we do better?

Then again, I have it on the authority of a Philosophy major that Socrates may never existed and Plato just made him up for expository purposes.

That would be amazing, and not unlike Plato, the rogue-ish imp. it would also make Plato, and no other, the single greatest person in the entire history of "The West", which he's pretty close to being now.

Doesn't change that Aristotle was known as "THE Philosopher" during the Middle Ages though.

I understand what you say, yet after one has gathered all the evidence from the world outside, one must return to that place only found within. There your only guide is a belief, that no matter what reality turns out to be, it be a construct able to be reasoned or it renders such pursuit as totally meaningless.

“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams.”

-William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”( Act II, scene II)

Ironically the greatest self proclaimed positivist, Stephen Hawkings, echoed these words in a work of his own. It always had me wonder where he thought his “nutshell” resided and what the nature of the resource it drew upon in such respect.

As you know I have some familiarity with many of the players you mention, such a Shakespeare, Bacon, Descartes and others such as Cantor to which you only reference. Also from what I know of character Bacon and Shakespeare although in the minority of the types, has one as a Strategist and the other a Dreamer.

That is although both being introverted and intuitive of nature, the former was a thinker and judgemental, while the latter trusting of his feelings and perceptions. So for me to believe the two to be the same, he would also have to be schizophrenic and there is nothing in the history of either man to suggest such to be the case. I of course forgive Cantor for not realizing this, as at the time psychology was only in its infancy and although still not what I would call an exact science today (whatever that is to mean) ,it has come a long way. Almost ironically Cantor himself would have been classified as a “cyclic manic-depressive” today and yet this illness of mind only increased the swings between the hills and the valleys of character to leave it unchanged in overall nature.

Anyway this doesn’t address the question at hand, except perhaps as to what types are required in the world to have us find truth and beauty, as it relates to the good or what I’d rather refer to as its quality.

Strictly by way of observation of what’s afforded by this blog, it’s had me to long wonder what is to account for this seemingly marked distinction between the character of many eastern European thinkers and those of the west. That is as there doesn’t seem to be any significant genetic difference, therefore it must then relate more to environment rather than anything being of an innate origin.

The key differences I find are best described by two concepts, with the first being tolerance and the other introspection. This I find to be interesting, as if we could isolate what the environment has to do with each, it might tell us a lot about how our world might be changed or at least better understand what Bee refers to as a fixed point invariant in respect to all. Oh by the way, this is not meant to be taken in jest, yet rather offered in all seriousness and sincerity, absent of any intent of malice or prejudice.

Shakespeare may have been in a collaboration project with Christopher Marlowe. It is easier to make realistic a collaboration to produce the Shakespeare canon, than someone else all on their own. I find it fairly convincing. See e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question#Christopher_Marlowe.Get a kick elsewhere in the e-ticle out of the word "bardolatry."

Phil, take care in speculating about innate ethnic differences, it's touchy ... I think Zephir isn't too stuck up, but the issue is out there.

Thanks Neil, thanks Steven for the links, and thanks Phil for the psychological assessment.

It's settled?:)

The tests determined that Shakespeare's work shows consistent, countable, profile-fitting patterns, suggesting that he was a single individual, not a committee, and that he used fewer relative clauses and more hyphens, feminine endings, and open lines than most of the writers with whom he was compared. The result determined that none of the other tested claimants' work could have been written by Shakespeare, nor could Shakespeare have been written by them, eliminating all of the claimants whose known works have survived—including Oxford, Bacon, and Marlowe—as the true authors of the Shakespeare canon.Shakespeare authorship question

I feel kind of bad, because Shakespeare wasn't the ONLY great writer, simply the greatest in the English language, unless you're in the school that Tolkien eclipsed him (but even if he did, Shakespeare was far, far more prolific).

The reason I say this is there ARE other languages, notably French and German. And who were the greatest writers in those languages? Hugo and Goethe, based on what I've heard.

Anyway, was Columbus the explorer's real name, or was he the Portuguese double-spy Salvador Fernandes Zarco? Hmm.. OK, OK, enough of that! I really want to talk about Loop Quantum Gravity, to whit:

LQG, and all these Quantum Gravity theories (yes even yours, Zephir) are geometry-based, which is nice and all and I'm sure Max Tegemark with his MUH would like nothing more than for you fine people to prove we live in a mathematical construct, but ...

What of the lesson learned from Aristotle's wheel paradox? That is to say, even though something seems sweet geometrically, the real world (which seems to love 0, kind of, but hates infinity) would beg to differ.

Call that Colyer's Paradox if you will, no, better yet, DON'T! Anyone who names anything after themselves is likely to be put through the John Baez Crackpot Index ringer, so look at the swinging watch, you did not read that, you did not read that , you did not ...

Plato: No, not the last word on Shakespeare! I heard a presentation once, making the good case that it the works were, as I said, a collaboration with Marlowe. In this view, Shakespeare provided the native talent, and Marlowe the inside scoop, some savvy, critique, etc. that Shakespeare by himself could not have done all by himself.

Steven, clever: but here's what may be a real (or "reel") paradox, I thought up (don't know of any prior mention): trying to say that rotational motion is relative too, runs into the conflict with different parts of a "actually rotating" wheel having different relative linear velocities, considered as "points." Yeah, you can look at the rotating coordinate systems as mutually equivalent, but that still conflicts with what we define as "velocity" per se in linear terms. Well in the latest abstract view the situation is looked at in terms of there being two basic ways to transform rigid, superposed coordinate systems - linear and angular displacement, so at that level it's not a "true paradox" - but IMHO it still perplexes, that the parts of a "genuinely rotating" disk still have actual relative velocities.

I wasn’t speculating about anything innate as from within, yet rather environmental as from without. That is to consider what is innate as culturally invariant. That’s to look at the quality of the clay as a fixed point so that all changes to it can be considered totally resultant of external consequences. That is it’s the old nature versus nurture quandary. What you’ve overlaid yourself is that in some way I’m making a judgement, as to which environmental consequences produce the best result. In such regard I have no opinion, other than to hypothesize that the differences in result are largely the consequence of environment. That is when you cut away the differences from each group you are left with what is innate.

For instance I live in a country where cultural diversity is embraced as a core principle and have noticed lately nations such as England, France and Germany have had their leadership now publicly reconsidering the wisdom of following such a principle. So then I’m left to wonder, what has had the experience of these countries to be so different from that of my nation to have such a different perception? The thing is the peoples of these mentioned nations formed to be the core that initially founded my own and how one could not ask what has the perceived result so different in such respect. That’s to suggest before such decisions are made more than outcome (result) should be weighed in the balance, as it’s obvious it has little objectively definitive commonality with cause as has thus been considered.

I tend to look at your wheel problem in considering the center of motion as the only commonality and to envision the travel of each wheel from a point on each circumference mapping out respective waves, as having the frequency the same and yet the amplitude of each vary although the total forward journeyed length being the same. In other words it’s a magician’s trick, where an arbitrary redirection of focused attention has use fail to recognize the true symmetry as it relates to invariance.

Sorry Phil, it's not a magician's trick, it's a real paradox that vexed thousands across centuries until friction and slipping and sliding were found to be the explanation. It's one of the rare times that Engineering trumped Mathematics than the other way around. I explain at my latest weblog entry, which I am loathe to link to in fear it violates Comment Rule # 5. Also, believe it or not, I hate drawing attention to myself. Sigh, I should have been born a Canadian. Oh, well.

No, it's NOT off-topic, Phil, Bee opens up discussion about Loop Quantum Gravity here, and all I'm saying that spherical cows, while wonderful, don't necessarily reflect the "real" world, and "Reality", by a better name, is "Physics."

As I wrote at my blog re your response to my comments re the mind-blowing Wheel paradox:

Yeah, I know what you're saying Phil, my critique was about the way you expressed it, to whit:

It's all about "cardinality", Phil, that the infinite numbers between 0 and 1 have a direct one-to-one correspondence between the infinite numbers on the complete number line.

Which makes NO SENSE the first time you hear it, but yah, after thought, it does. There is no need to bring amplitudes into the discussion, although, being the expert Philosopher that you are (and yes, you are IMO, zero sarcasm my friend, you're awesome), I'm more than willing to bring imaginary numbers and complex arithmetic from first principles into the discussion, if you are.

I have some level of comfort when it comes to matters of the Aleph and yet that would be as much as to say I’m fairly comfortable as to finding myself in reality more generally. The reason I chose to us waves as they contrast to straight lines, is I find such a concept in itself a more everyday familiar way to express the manifestation and consequences related to cardinality.

That is there are mappings one can do on a one on one basis and others that you simply can’t; such as the difference between the countables and uncountables from the Cantorian perspective. The question to be asked is how can all this extraness be accounted for and explained, which is to attempt to have it expressed mathematically in terms of dimensions (degrees of freedom) or physically if you prefer. Then of course we can ask if there truly is any distinction to be made between the two conceptualizations.

Cantor continued to correspond with Dedekind, sharing his ideas and seeking Dedekind's opinions, and he wrote to Dedekind in 1877 proving that there was a 1-1 correspondence of points on the interval [0, 1] and points in p-dimensional space. Cantor was surprised at his own discovery and wrote:-Cantor Biography

Didn't know about Cantor's sickness and eccentricity.

During the visit he apparently began to behave eccentrically, talking at great length on the Bacon-Shakespeare question; then he travelled down to London for a few days.Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor

The surface of a marble table is spread out in front of me. I can get from any one point on this table to any other point by passing continuously from one point to a "neighboring" one, and repeating this process a (large) number of times, or, in other words, by going from point to point without executing "jumps." I am sure the reader will appreciate with sufficient clearness what I mean here by "neighbouring" and by "jumps" (if he is not too pedantic). We express this property of the surface by describing the latter as a continuum.Albert Einstein p. 83 of his Relativity: The Special and the General Theory

The feeling is in the air that we might be one step closer to a solution. Dyson might be right that the opportunity was missed to discover relativity 40 years earlier, but who knows how long we might still have had to wait for the discovery of connections between primes and quantum physics had mathematicians not enjoyed a good chat over tea. Prime Numbers Get Hitched by Marcus du Sautoy

If one considered the Pascal triangle and some association as to probabilities, what said which number system could have emerged?

From a "chaotic" system?:)

While experimentally satisfying as to disproving the value of supersymmetry in the LHC it is not easy to dismiss the philosophical argument for perspective of where life comes from and what emerges as numbered systems.

How does one not know that numbers as well as souls can emerge from the same place?

Instead of such a profound complexity where therein lie patterns for expression(Pascal triangle) this has not been identified other then as a number system representing a pattern in nature?

The perspective of valuations with regard to the LHC is whether or not there is sufficient energy within the confines of LHC experiments in which to satisfy the questions about those extra dimensions. It seems the parameters of those decisions seem to be sufficient with current article links?

/* ..what is to account for this seemingly marked distinction between the character of many eastern European thinkers and those of the west...*/

It's true, the easter civilization preffers more holistic approach historically, whereas the western one more individualistic one - but this difference is fuzzy today due the cultural convergence. SUSY in particular has been proposed symmetrically at both sides of the ocean. Regarding the tolerance and introspection, my ideas are generally ignored - if not censored - at both sides of the planet. Whereas I'm collecting the knowledge of the whole civilisation with no prejudices. The main problem of SUSY is, nobody actually understands this concept at the intuitive level, which should serve as a good clue of its validity.

OK Phil, I gotcha. Sorry, I guess I was thinking like an Engineer, and you like a ... Philosopher. :-)

What the wheel paradox pointed out to me is how an animation in this case, or a mental construct in the case of the ancients (and ourselves today ... were we not so dependent on 'puters), conflicts with the REAL world.

In other words, if those were rubber band lines, the band on the top wheel would stretch, the one on the bottom, not.

Alternately, if they were gears, say a rack and pinion such that no stretching or slipping and sliding were allowed, the wheels would lock and nothing would move.

Probably the easiest way to express it is that physical space requires dimension(s) while numbers don’t. Never the less, with Cantor’s revelations respective of the Aleph, although numbers don’t have dimensions, they do have cardinality(s), which can accommodate their existence. It’s too bad that the Pythagoreans hadn’t realized this as to have saved us from a few thousands of years of confusion ;-)

“Thus Descartes was not so far from the truth when he believed he must exclude the existence of an empty space. The notion indeed appears absurd, as long as physical reality is seen exclusively in ponderable bodies. It requires the idea of the field as the representative of reality, in combination with the general principle of relativity, to show the true kernel of Descartes' idea; there exists no space "empty of field".”

-Albert Einstein, “Relativity: The Special and the General Theory”, Crown Publishing (fifth edition, 1954)

Given the big names: Smolin, Gleiser, Greene, and 3 others, I'm not sure how much time there will be for an actual debate. It would have been cool if it started at 10am and went on all day. Oh well.

I would very much like to attend, but other duties will prevent that, dangit. Unless Phil or others would like to jet down, then maybe I could clear my schedule. I'll pay the $5.50 tax that Pres. Obama charges you Canadians, Phil, I'm feeling that magnanimous. :-)

The master debaters will be:

Dr. Katherine Freese, professor of physics at the University of Michigan

Dr. Jim Gates, professor of physics at the University of Maryland-College Park

Dr. Janna Levin, professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College

Dr. Marcello Gleiser, professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College

Dr. Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University

If I had a private jet and not also being so tied up myself I’d make the trip despite your Commander and Chief’s assessment of the burden my countryperson’s inflict on your bottom line:-) Actually though this is sort of a rerun, as essentially the same group got together via video link set up by Perimeter Institute last June. I would suspect that as this one you’re not going to gather much more then you already know.

Perhaps more interestingly in respect to the current discussion, I attended a public lecture given by Janna Levin , in which she outlines her book “A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines” which discusses the dichotomy formed between Godel and Turing, relating to their conceptions respective of reality (analog vs. digital). She also emphasises how between the two another dichotomy can also be recognized in respect to each regarding their personal demise; with Godel’s mainly resultant of the demons found within, while Turing’s more so by the demons without. However I found it a better exposition of their character as opposed to their work, if she had provided a more insightful explanation of the latter I believe the whole thing would have been of greater significant.

/*..the true kernel of Descartes' idea; there exists no space "empty of field..*/

Such space would appear like void empty singularity for every gradient formed creatures like the people. In AWT the existence of space-time gradients is necessary (but not the only one) condition of existence of space.

Anytime I rattle something to have them aroused requires no thanks, particularly when all I offered is an echo from the past. Anyway I do find Cantor’s conclusions interesting in regards to the character of an unbroken continuum as it relates to a broken one.

Interestingly enough when I was first alerted to this way of thinking I ran the Fibonacci sequenced stepped iterations though a spreadsheet and then plotted (line graphed) the results. Here it could be clearly seen, that although each successive solution was approaching Pi it waved back and forth around the solution in an ever diminishing fluctuation; as if seeking a space that couldn’t be found. It was this experience which had me to better appreciate what Cantor must have felt when he came upon his startling conclusion in respect to the nature of the Aleph.

Re space: it indeed cannot really be a "nothingness" for it has a certain number of dimensions that confine objects within it. Although we can construct an "empty space" as a mathematical entity (after all, a coordinate system) that doesn't mean a physical space could be like that and really be "nothing" - if any entities are within it, they are constrained as if in a membrane. Hence ideas of gravitons leaking into other dimensions etc.

Note, it is absurd and meaningless for one "nothing" to be demarcated inside another one. So if a hypersphere is inside a spatial 4-d continuum or we are a "bubble in a larger scheme, these are "things" embedded in other things. This is also why it is deceptive for people for argue that the universe "came from nothing" per quantum fluctuations - "fluctuations" require time and a manifold to operate within, they cannot act out of "nothing." The philosophical illiteracy and crudity of physical insight in many popularizations (and sadly, even what the physicists seem to be getting at in serious terms, sorry Hawking and Hartle et al) is unfortunate.

Since someone brought up digital and analog, and the post title implies some leeway, I again remind of my Essay at FQXi for the " ... Digital or Analog" contest (accessible from my link.)

Yeah, well, Lubos just posted his Lubosian defense up at his blog, so I guess we know where Zephir is going. Any chance he'll let your reply through, Zephir?

Regarding tonight's debate, thanks to Bee and Stefan's coverage here I think we know what Gleiser, Smolin, and Greene will say.

Well, um, it will be very interesting to see what Lee and Brian have to say about SUSY. But SUSY isn't the topic, is it? Hmm.

The other three I never heard of, but I did a little research:

Dr. Gates - Jim Gates is big on SUSY and SuperStrings. I suppose he'll defend his camp. Would be REALLY interesting if they get away from TOE and talk SUSY, though.

Dr. Levin - Janna Levin is into the universe being of finite size, a very interesting field in itself, as well as black holes and chaos. This makes her a natural for me to wish to hear most of all.

Dr. Freese - Katherine Freese is absolutely HUGE is the interface of particle physics and astrophysics, and IceCube in Antarctica is based in large part on her work. Another science giant I will be missing, dayam.

Please excuse this impertinent newbie's question, but why are people talking about TOE when we don't even have GUT yet?

Also, Loop Quantum Gravity, cool enough, but ...

Isn't it possible, as Brian Greene stated in one of his books, that CDT, LQG and SST can all three exist in the same universe, just at different length and time scales? Well actually he didn't mention CDT, which reminds me ...

Where is CDT, what Musser calls "Buckyspace" in his book, NOW, Bee? I can't thank you enough for that LQG blog, but what of CDT? Anyone blog that? Anyone?

K, enough for today, I have horribly mundane things to do. Off to read Bee's latest post (SWEET to see Science stuff again), then off to the chores world and see ya'll manana.

/..but why are people talking about TOE when we don't even have GUT yet..*/

Because from such TOE could follow, no GUT scale actually exists. Recently some theories, inside of black holes another Universes exists became popular - where is the limit of mass/energy scale, after then? Not to say, the GUT scale appears inherently fuzzy in the same way, like the particle horizon of the observable Universe. All formal math will become poorly conditioned there, every formal model will be equally probable there.

"The progress [in string theory] over the last 10 years has only solidified my confidence that this is a worthwhile direction to pursue."... Brian Greene, at the 11th Asimov Debate 3/7/11

Yeah, minus the last 2 months, Brian.

"Are you [string theorists] chasing a ghost or is the collection of you just too stupid to figure this out?" Neil deGrasse Tyson teased, beginning a friendly banter that would continue throughout the night.

Folks, do yourselves a favor and please click here, which is the 2nd weblog post up on the 11th Issac Asimov Memorial "Debates", by one of the participants, Marcelo Gleiser.

Simply, it's very frank and real. It doesn't pull any punches whatsoever, and is hands down one the most honest and best things I have EVER read about the current state of Theoretical and Experimental Physics.